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en-usEngadget RSS FeedCopyright 2015 AOL Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/15/yik-yak-now-allows-anonymous-photo-sharing-just-not-selfies/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/15/yik-yak-now-allows-anonymous-photo-sharing-just-not-selfies/http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/15/yik-yak-now-allows-anonymous-photo-sharing-just-not-selfies/%3Futm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%23commentsYik Yak announced today that it will now allow users to post photos to the anonymous messaging app -- just so long as they don't include human faces. That means you'll be able to share photos of your dog, your meal and non-reproductive body parts, just not your face. Seriously, don't even try. The company will be actively monitoring photo posts (before they go live) in an effort to maintain content control. Users, however, will still be allowed to show pictures of themselves as part of photo collections in the Explore section of Peek. Additionally, the company rolled out phone verification in an effort to combat spam and make the app a bit more secure.

Google is launching brand new watch-to-watch communication features for Android Wear that are not unlike those on Apple's Watch, according to Phandroid. Users will reportedly be able to send each other doodles, photos, stickers, messages and more using a feature called "Together." That's pretty similar to the Apple Watch's Digital Touch, which allows users to relay tap patterns, drawings and even heartbeats to each other. Oddly, Android Wear users who want to share items may need to use the same the same watchface, as the feature isn't system-wide. However, Phandroid admitted that its information on that aspect "is quite old."

We've adjusted to watching each other's lives six-seconds at a time, but Vine's shareable moments always come across a little ...blurry. Thankfully, the short-video service is fixing that: as of today, folks using the Vine app on iOS will have access to a new HD quality option. Love it. Use it. Save all of our eyes.

Pushbullet is already a secret weapon for getting content from one device (or one person) to another -- you can relay your links, notifications, photos and SMS messages with a common app. Today, though, it's getting considerably more powerful. As part of a revamp, Pushbullet's desktop, mobile and web apps are turning into true messaging apps, with easy replies and a quick way to find "pushes" (chats and shared content) from your friends. On Windows, it'll even give you Facebook-style chat heads that keep conversations close at hand. Effectively, Pushbullet is blurring the lines between sharing and messaging -- you don't have to switch apps to talk to a friend after you're done sending a photo to your phone. All of the updates are available now, so you can give this all-encompassing app a shot right away.

Wondering how you'd exchange info between smartwatches when their displays are so small? Apple thinks it has an easy answer: make the same gestures you already use to greet your friends. The tech firm has applied for a patent on a system that exchanges data between wearables (presumably Apple Watches) whenever both people make a similar greeting gesture, such as a handshake, bow or fist bump. The watches would only need to use their motion sensors and short-range wireless to tell that you're getting cozy -- you wouldn't need to tap the screen at all. Devices could also swap different kinds of data depending on the exact gesture and how well you know the other person, so you'd only share contact info if you're grabbing hands for the first time. There's no guarantee that Apple will roll this feature into the Watch any time soon, but it strikes us as a very logical (and, dare we say it, handy) upgrade.

Facebook's Creative Labs has produced yet another app that feels like it should be a feature within the main Facebook app rather than another icon taking up space on your smartphone. The new Moments app creates shared photo albums from a group of people at an event. Photos are curated using location information and facial recognition, individuals can share and see photos from friends that were at the same place at the same time. So instead of everyone taking a photo of a sunset, one person can take it and share it with the group via the standalone app. The technology used in the app is based on the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) team's work. While the pitch is to share photos privately, shared photos can be uploaded to Instagram and downloaded to a user's camera roll. So they're private until a friend decides to put that weird face you made on their Instagram feed. Moments is available today for iOS and Android in the United States and will be rolling out to other regions over time.

In an unsurprising revelation, it turns out your Facebook news feed is watching you almost as much as you watch it. The Menlo Park-based company announced today that it is "improving" its news feature by taking into account not just whether someone liked or commented on an article but also by how much time they spent reading it. "Just because someone didn't like, comment or share a story in their News Feed doesn't mean it wasn't meaningful to them," Facebook explains."There are times when, for example, people want to see information about a serious current event, but don't necessarily want to like or comment on it."

If you happen to be in London this week, we recommend keeping one eye locked on the Thames. Airbnb is sailing a bright blue house down the iconic river to celebrate the passing of the Deregulation Act, which gives London residents permission to "share" their property for up to 90 days each year. Best of all, you can actually live in Airbnb's unusual floating home -- it comes with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a living room, as well as a small garden complete with lawn, trees and a dog kennel. Of course, this is just a publicity stunt, but it's a creative one that could brighten up London's iconic landmark. Airbnb is also letting a lucky few spend the night in the house this Friday, with just a few important house rules; no swimming in the Thames, no floating house parties and "no floating away." I wonder if that last one includes tying hundreds of colourful balloons to the roof?

Picture the scene: you're browsing on your phone when, suddenly, you find a list of the Top 10 celebrity pets that have killed people. Now, you just have to show this to your friends on Facebook, but that means finding the share link, holding it down until it copies, opening the app and pasting it in, which could take several seconds. Naturally, that's an intolerable situation for Mark Zuckerberg, which is why the social network is testing a way to search and add these links from within the Facebook app itself. That way, all you'd have to do is click the Add Link button, type "10 celebrity pets that have kil..." and the link should pop up all by itself.

In case you dropped Droplr when the sharing app went from free to paid-only the company has a plan to potentially woo you back. How's that? It's going freemium starting tomorrow. Links and files you spread around with the free plan will have a week-long lifespan before evaporating. Should you want any long-term storage or whatnot, TechCrunch reports that you'll have to shell out basically double the price from before for Droplr Pro: $9.99 per month now versus the previous $4.99 action. Refreshed iOS and Mac apps are en route as well and the outfit has a few promotions going on to help take the sting out of the increased monthly price.

Can't wait to share a photo as soon as it hits the internet? Google has your back. The company has updated Drive for Android so that you can start sharing files from the notification that your upload is done -- you don't even have to launch the app to get things going. The update also adds support for 23 more languages, including local Chinese and French dialects. Just be ready to wait a while for this no-waiting feature, as Google says the update will be rolling out over the next week.

Artists and comedians have been doing some truly amazing things with Vine since it launched as a Twitter product two years ago, but those mesmerizing slices of life that eat up your day in six-second increments have never really looked all that great. That's finally starting to change, according to a blog post by Vine API lead Mike Kaplinskiy -- you'll start seeing vines in 720p (up from the normal, eye-searing 480p) in the team's iOS and Android apps within the next few days, but some of them can already be spotted embedded around the web.

If your family can't agree on anything, a mobile data sharing plan on a two-year contract may not be the best idea. Virgin Mobile USA will now let you part company quickly if need be with its latest offering: prepaid 4G family data sharing plans, now available at Walmart. You can go month-to-month for $65 with two lines sharing 4GB or up to $115 with four lines and 12GB total of LTE data. The latter plan works out to a tempting $28.75 per month per person, with each member getting a 3GB share per month, provided nobody pigs out on data. T-Mobile, AT&T and others offer no-contract plans already, though all are post-paid, month-by-month services. The possible negative to Virgin's prepaid plan is that you'll be on Sprint's mobile network, which is far and away the slowest in the US.

Update: As pointed out by a reader, Virgin is far from the first no-contract carrier, as AT&T, T-Mobile and others have shared no-contract plans. However, Virgin claims it's the first prepaid carrier with such an offering, so we've updated the post with that info. Thanks Seth!

Secret first sprung into life in February 2014 as an app/social space where people could get together and engage in real talk, all while leaving their real names checked at the door. It generated Silicon Valley acquisition rumors. It sparked IRL dinner parties (complete with masks). And, as is often the case for the buzzy startup du jour, it got stale. So, what's a beleaguered company to do? Well, if you're Secret, you completely redesign your iOS and Android apps in hopes people fall in love with it again. Of course, a new coat of paint and some bolt-on features might not be able to change Secret's underlying problem.

Good news for those of you who use Microsoft's cloud storage service on Android. Earlier today, the OneDrive app received an update that now lets it send push notifications for shared files and folders to your device, making it easier to keep up with collaborators on the changes being made to documents. In addition to that, this new version also allows you to get custom pin code timeouts within the application, as well as adding thumbnails to OneDrive for Business files. These improvements should help make OneDrive for Android much better on Google's platform, something that's going to be appreciated by people who utilize Redmond's virtual locker regularly.

Well, that was fast. Twitter casually mentioned at its Analyst Day festivities last week that it'd soon give users the ability to share public Tweets in private conversations, and now a new update to its apps and web clients means you can do just that. Either a long-press on a Tweet or a quick pop into the 'More' menu in Twitter's mobile and desktop versions respectively will let you dump that micro-missive into a Direct Message conversation, where it'll pop up in a tiny card for lightspeed perusal. We can hardly contain our excitement either.

As handy as services like AirDrop or Android Beam may be for shuffling content between nearby devices, they're platform-exclusive. That's not much help if you want to share photos from your Android phone to an iPhone, or vice versa. However, Google may soon overcome that barrier. Android Police, Techaeris and GigaOM all have evidence of Copresence, a service that would let Android and iOS devices swap content over WiFi. Reportedly, it uses location data (including Bluetooth) to set up the connection; after that, you can send directions, photos and other info without having to either bump devices or rely on cloud storage options like Google Drive or Dropbox. The technique shouldn't require a Google account, either.

Spotify has just addressed one of the main beefs with its service: the lack of ability to share a premium subscription. With Spotify Family, you can now share your $9.99 plan with up to four other folks for an extra $5 per. That means the price starts at $14.99 for you and one friend, going up to $29.99 with five people altogether, for a savings of $5 to $20. They won't be stuck with your musical taste, either, as each member will get their own account with separate playlists, recommendations and more. That makes Spotify's premium service pretty tempting, and don't worry if your family or friends aren't music lovers -- that never stopped Sprint's Framily subscribers.

Karma's concept of a shareable mobile hotspot is clever -- you not only get data wherever you go, but you get some of it for free if you're kind enough to share with others. The service wasn't very alluring when it was using Sprint's pokey old WiMAX network, however, which is why the company has just unveiled a much-needed LTE hotspot, the Karma Go. You can now hop online (or invite others to do the same) at a far quicker 6-8Mbps typical speed, with much better coverage to boot.

Enjoy how Chrome and other apps share data back and forth on Android? Now you can get that feeling on iOS, since Google has updated Chrome to take advantage of the app extensions supported by iOS 8. That doesn't mean you'll be able to install any of Chrome's desktop extensions -- it just means links can be shared directly to any other apps on your iDevice, as long as they also support the feature. The update is rocking "iOS 8 compatibility" but no tweaks for the extra size of the iPhone 6 family have appeared yet.

Facebook's megaphone-like approach to sharing makes it less than ideal for more private missives. Sharing private images or jokes with select people is something of a test of nerves. One slip of a drop-down menu, and your intimate photo could go global, rather than just to your "mates" privacy group. But, Facebook wants you to share in anyway, and to anyone you like with confidence it seems. According to TechCrunch, the social network's working on a "Moments" mobile app to help. Once again, Facebook would be taking a single-focused idea out of the main mobile app into a standalone one if sources are correct. The Moments app will reportedly use a visual, tile-based interface for you select the group or sub groups of people you wish to share your -- we assume -- moment with. If this sounds a lot like Google+'s "circles" mechanism, that's because it does. There's no word when Moments could find its way onto phones, so for now, you'll just have to run the gauntlet with current tools to avoid having your mom comment on bachelor(ette?) party photos.

Still looking for a reason to use Facebook's now-unbundled Messenger app? A new feature learns from competition including Snapchat and Facebook's own Slingshot by adding easy annotation on shared photos. Just click the picture icon like you normally do, then hit the edit button instead of send, and you can doodle with your finger (remember Draw Something? Is anyone still playing that?) or just type in some text before sending. Right now the tweak is Android-only, and should already be live if you're running the most recent version of the app.

Yes, cloud services like Dropbox make it easy to share folders through public directories and links, but you still have to put those folders in the cloud in the first place. Wouldn't you rather share them straight from your PC? BitTorrent hopes to make things that direct with its big Sync 1.4 update. Now, you can share folders with others just by giving them web links; you don't have to wait for the files to reach a remote server, or rely on Sync's slightly more obtuse Key system. You don't have to sign up for an account, either, and you can still limit access to prevent others from messing with precious documents. About the only headache is that your recipient needs Sync, although BitTorrent promises that it will walk first-timers through the process. Slideshow-216819

If you love hanging your dirty laundry on carefully curated and symbolic images, then Secret's next update both is -- and isn't -- for you. Sometime next week, the anonymous sharing app will integrate Flickr image search, but access to the photo service's library comes at a price: the ability to use your own photos. The update will remove the ability to upload images from your phone, with the exception of pictures taken in real-time with the Secret app itself.

Family mobile plans might be big in the US, but they haven't really got going in the UK. However, that isn't stopping Vodafone from trying to change people's minds with the launch of its new Red+ plan. Instead of equipping a family with individual tariffs, Vodafone aims to supply each member of the household with their own SIM, allowing the "plan leader" to distribute monthly data limits depending on how data thirsty they are. These so-called leader plans are basically upgraded Red plans that come with a 2GB, 4GB, 7GB, 10GB or 13GB data allowance, which can then be shared with a family member in 500MB, 1GB, 2GB or 4GB amounts.